A Father's Love
by DC-MarvelGirl 1997
Summary: Oliver expected that being a father was not going to come easy at all. He knew that. He just didn't know how hard it was, especially being the father of a traumatized kid.


**A/N:**

 **I decided to write this one shot at as a reaction fic to the Arrow season 6 trailer. I was inspired by the scene between Oliver and William in the trailer, where Oliver asks William where the bad man is. This is a one shot of how I hope the scene will go and how I hope everything is going to go in the season 6 premier. Hope you enjoy.**

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Oliver expected that being a father was not going to come easy at all. He knew that. He just didn't know how hard it was, especially being the father of a traumatized kid.

After leaving the restaurant that night, from his date with Felicity, Oliver went back towards HIVE after dropping Felicity back off at her place. He was glad that he and Felicity reconciled and were going to start working towards mending their romance. However, despite him and Felicity mending things, the deep trauma was deep for everyone after what had happened on Lian Yu.

Diggle had lost his right leg and left arm, and was going to be handicapped for the rest of his life. The emotional damage done to Dig was even worse than the physical, as Dig was not sure how he could come back from what happened. Dig was probably the strongest, toughest person Oliver had met, so to see Diggle so deeply emotionally affected was hard to watch.

Thea had run after Samantha and watched Samantha die in the explosion. William's mother, the only family he's ever known, was dead, gone.

Although Thea, Curtis, Felicity, Dinah and Rene were all right, they had to witness not only Samantha's death, but also watch as Quentin died in the explosion as well. Thea was still coping from the loss of Malcolm, who had sacrificed himself to save her and presumably dead as well. Additionally, Black Siren and Evelyn were loose and walking around Star City going God only knew what. Slade and Nyssa were still very much so alive; Nyssa had gone back to Nanda Parbat. Talia and Digger Harkness were also gone for good.

The heavy losses of Quentin, Samantha and Malcolm weighed heavily on everyone, but the person that was most affected by the events was William.

As Oliver climbed the stairs to where he and William were currently residing, Oliver thought back to the day of the Lian Yu explosion with a heavy heart. He remembered so clearly the sick look on Adrian Chase's face when he had pulled the trigger and shot himself. Chase killed himself and allowed Lian Yu to explode to do what? To prove a _point?_ To prove _Oliver_ was the monster? The thought made Oliver feel sick to his stomach as he remembered how William had buried himself into his chest, how William had cried and cried so hard he shook. Oliver shook his head as his stomach churned, willing himself not to think about it. The more he thought about it, the sicker he felt.

The first thing that he wanted to do was check on his boy and see how William was doing. The past six months, William had been post-traumatic, with nightmares, panic attacks and self-harming. While Oliver was worried about the nightmares and the panic attacks William had been having, he cared more about the fact that his son had started cutting himself a month ago. He'd started with taking his son to therapy, hoping that William talking about it to someone outside the situation would help. While it helped marginally, William's trauma was deep. Oliver walked into William's room, which had baseball and football posters plastered, as well as posters from Flash Day on the walls. Oliver could see William's books, comics and Flash and Green Arrow action figures displayed on shelving. However, Oliver's fatherly intuition came to when he saw William curled up on the bed, face buried in his arms.

 _He must've had another nightmare while I was out_ Oliver thought to himself. He knew that he needed to handle this now. Oliver found himself crouching down in front of William at the foot of the bed, trying to get his son to look at him. He knew a thing or two about PTSD, especially after he got back home from his five years in hell. He remembered the night he came back home. He had found himself sleeping on the floor, as that was what he had been used to. The lightning storm that night had triggered his nightmare, and when he'd came to, he'd found himself awake, his hand nearly crushing his mother's windpipe. It had been that moment that he realized his deep trauma.

"William?" whispered Oliver, knowing how to approach his son. "William?"

"I keep seeing it," whispered William, his voice shaking with fear.

"It was just a dream," Oliver said softly, trying to soothe the frightened young boy in front of him.

"No, no it was not," William said, sounding as though he was about to cry. "It-It happened. I-I keep seeing him. The bad man."

Oliver let out a sigh. William had been having the same nightmare every other night, the same panic attack at least once a day. Oliver sensed William was starting to see the nightmare clearer, that the PTSD was getting worse for his son. "Tell me where the bad man is?" Oliver requested.

William looked up at his father and just pointed directly at him. "Here," he said shakily.

Oliver closed his eyes. He knew William was beginning to see him as the bad guy due to his nightmares and all of the garbage that Chase had shoved into his son's head while holding him captive. Oliver knew he needed to ask William what Chase had said to him. He needed to try and understand so that he could try and help. Letting out a sigh, Oliver decided that now that William knew he was the Green Arrow, Oliver needed to tell his son about his own demons, about the horrors he's been put through and what Chase had done to him.

"William," Oliver started to say. "I-I don't know what Chase told you, what he said to you, but I can tell you right now whatever he said was full of nothing but crap. And I would know, because, he-he at one point held me captive and he tortured me for a week. He wanted to break me mentally; he told me that everyone around me suffers, that everything I touch turns to ashes. He umm. . . he got so far into my head, that he let me go after I told him that my whole crusade as the Green Arrow was based on a lie; that I killed at the beginning of my crusade because I enjoyed it. I-I'll admit that at one point I _was_ turned into a killer, that I was turned into something. But it wasn't Chase that did that. I'd spent a total of five years in hell, five years, where nothing good happened, where I saw nothing but the worst, the ugly, the bad. For at least two years I was left stranded on that island, watching people suffer, turn into something unrecognizable. After those two years of living on that island, where I was already in hell, I was forced all the way to Hong Kong to do. . . to do _horrible_ things that I am still not proud of. Then after a year in Hong Kong, I was forced back to Lian Yu, where I witnessed _mystical_ things, things that you only read about in _Harry Potter_ books, magic, watching people become under the influence of just the worst. And then a year later, I found myself in Russia, mixed up with a group of thugs. I-I was trained by that woman, Talia; she _trained me_ to become a monster, so the fact that she even trained Chase to be the exact same thing, that woman was probably the biggest hypocrite I've met in my life. The things that I had to do. . . to survive, to live, I think about those things _every single day_ of my life. When I finally came home after five years away from my family, I-I slept on the floor my first night home. I found myself sleeping on the floor with the window open. There was a thunder storm outside, and I guess the lightning, the thunder, triggered my past, and triggered those memories. When my mother came up to my room, trying to awaken me, I found myself nearly crushing her windpipe; my step-dad looking at me as though I'd lost my damn mind. I did so many things that I am ashamed of, but I have to live with it because it's done. Those five years turned me into a killer, but the fact that five years of dealing with this city's worst didn't turn me into a monster, into what I used to be, proves _exactly_ what kind of person I am, William. A woman, Felicity, reminded me of that. Brilliant mind, and probably one of the smartest women I've met in my life. She's-She's given me peace that I couldn't find anywhere else. She's-She's always been that rock, my confidant that gave me so much."

"Why are you telling me this?" William asked, his eyes glazing over with tears.

" _Because_ , William." Oliver stood and sat beside his son on the bed, holding him into his chest. "Those that we love are the ones that help make things easier. Once you realize how much you do have, it gets easier. Those that love us are the ones that won't ever go away. Felicity wouldn't have fallen in love with me or wanted to marry me if she didn't know what kind of man I was. Because of her, because of Dig, because of my team I found it easier to find a way to become a different kind of person. I'm a better man because of them. Living this life, I can tell you this much, it helps a lot to not be alone. I've seen what living life like this can do, especially when alone through it. William, you are _never_ gonna lose me, you hear me?"

William nodded, shutting his eyes tightly, letting out a shaky sigh he didn't even realize he was holding in. Oliver hugged him tight and pressed the gentlest of a kiss against William's hair, wanting nothing more than to keep the evils of the world from touching him. Oliver was William's last line of defense, the last parent he had, the last father William had. The father and son just sat there like that, blind to what was going on out in the night.

"I want _nothing_ more for you than to be safe, to be peaceful," Oliver whispered. "I won't stop fighting until you find some peace with what's happened to you. I love you."

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 **A/N:**

 **So, what do you think of this? Review and tell me what you think and what you are looking forward to from the Arrow season 6 premier. Thank you-**

 **XOXO, Dani**


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